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Congressman Joe Wilson, who garnered much attention for himself by shouting "Liar" in the chambers of Congress recently, has apparently started a trend this month.

Shouts of "Liar" haven't subsided one bit... except a new target has been bearing the brunt of the impact: Apple.

Since last week's media fiasco provoked by Apple and Google's war of words, a lot of folks have expressed displeasure with how Apple communicated its way through that whole debacle. But now that the smoke has settled, some are coming around to stop castigating and, instead, cast a lifeline of advice to a company that seems to need a positive spin ASAP.

Of course, speaking truth to power is never easy. But this morning, Paul Suarez at PC World is making a bold attempt to jolt Apple from the recent media funk in which the company has found itself.

It's no secret that Apple isn't exactly earning praise for rejecting Google Voice. A recent "truth-stretching" response to the FCC about its action didn't help the company's image either.

Suarez's advice? Apple should embrace third-party options in their product lines in order to regain some measure of consumer confidence. The first step? Put a whole new effort into building up the iPod Touch.

Offer a iPod Touch with 3G capabilities. Apple could manufacture an iPod that has built-in 3G and is meant to be another wireless option to the iPhone. Scrap the current App Store approval process and allow room for third-party VoIP and messaging options to become available.

Those of us who love Apple are taking personally the recent wave of criticisms that have utterly shaken the company's focus from what it does best - create and support amazing technologies that revolutionize the way we live our lives. In this regard, I agree with Suarez. Apple needs to get back to work at fostering growth, not stifling it and couching excuses for not doing so in carefully worded letters and press releases.

Scrap the current App Store approval process and allow room for third-party VoIP and messaging options to become available.

For Apple, such a move seems increasingly more inevitable. And the longer the company waits to drastically change its policies of exclusion (which have proven more prevalent that we realized in recent weeks) the longer it will take for Apple to get back to doing the creative work that never gave the company a black eye from the mass media before.